Waterville (or Home)

I come to Waterville to walk amid the dunes

between the phormium and the common gorse

on fescue and rushes in sandy soil that

protects arable land from the ocean.

I come to see the flood current struggle

against the discharge of the estuary

in midwinter, where the tide meets the river,

to see which will prevail.

I come for the 12×8 corrugated metal shed

that serves as a boathouse and stands

beneath an ash with dieback,

an art project of its own.

I come here because there are no snakes

and little lightning and because,

this far away from mass civilization,

it is hard to be a consumer.

I come to Waterville where the air is pure,

the wind is wild, the veil is thin.

I come for the duchas, the petite patrie,

that establishes a distinctive life rhythm

I come to experience

the inadequacy of vocabulary

that draws me into silence. I come,

like monks, to the desert in the sea.

Sometimes, to be honest, I prefer the rain

lashing against the stucco and tempered

glass and the slate roof tiles. I come because

I think I hear uillean pipes in the distance.

I come to recollect

that the sky is still azure blue

even when the cloud blanket

is dense and opaque.

I come for the hares and foxes,

the kittiwakes and puffins,

the gannets and greylag geese, the otter,

the dairy cows and all the sheep.

I come for the fuchsia and montbretia,

the blackberries on the bramble,

the vigorous hydrangea, and

the foxglove near the Finglass.

I come to hear about the donkeys,

taken on a joyride overnight. I come

to hear the obituaries

of all those who just died.

I come to imagine the ice

that carved the art we now know

as the Bay of Kenmare or

the Gap of Dunloe.

I come to be near the saints and angels

Finian, Brigid, Patrick and Michael

and all the monks who carved 618 steps

in 600 years and lived in beehive huts.

I come to sit at a 15-foot Trinity table,

150 years old. I come

to hibernate with you

in the dead of wild Atlantic winter.

I know I will never be one of ye.

But I come to admire what I see.

I came as a guest, but ye welcomed me.

I hope you don’t mind if I now call it home.